"It will take a rally of monumental proportions to save the penis of John McAfee" - Zerohedge, 2017

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Sunday economic indicators

Really, the US economy is on set-and-forget. And since the election of Trump, the right-wing doomer brigade has had no ebil sociamalism to blame an impending collapse upon, so there's less worry in the market.

But still, I may as well give you some links once in a while to remind you of the above.

While the headline for most summaries of this report will probably be the miss in the headline jobs number, the deeper trends appear to be a continuation of what we have seen for the last few months: significant declines in both the unemployment and underemployment rates, a continuing sharp increase in labor force participation (the biggest in nearly 30 years), but continuing wage growth stagnation. These trends are probably linked. The big move from people off the sidelines into the labor market is probably helping keep a lid on wage growth.

The only other negatives in the report is the stubborn high number of people outside of the labor force who want a job now, and the decline in the manufacturing workweek and overtime.

All in all, this was a quite positive late cycle jobs report, as the YoY% gain in jobs continues to decelerate, but remain positive.

You can always find at least one sector that looks bad. One year ago it was manufacturing. Now it is brick and mortar retail sales. But the vast majority of indicators demonstrate that the outlook over the next 6 to 8 months remains very positive. The outlook for one year and further out remains generally neutral with a slight positive tilt.